HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF ENGLISH
-----------------------------

CODE: 05

GRADUATION THESIS
B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES

HOW TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS FOR
FISRT-YEAR-ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS

Supervisor : LÊ PHƯƠNG THẢO, M.A
Student

: VŨ THU TRANG

Date of birth: 25/08/1993

Course

: K18A2 (2011-2015)


How to improve speaking skills for first- year- English-majored students

HANOI, 2015

Vũ Thu Trang

K18A2 – Faculty of English2

my profound gratitude to my supervisor Mrs. Lê Phương Thảo M.A from
whom I have received enormous kindness and guidance.
Also, I am very grateful to all the teachers at the English Faculty of
Hanoi Open University for their interesting and useful lectures which have
built in me a firm foundation with immense ideas for the fulfillment of this
paper.
In particular, my special thanks go to my parents who have, as it always
goes, encouraged and supported me so much in all respects.
Last but not least, I should also express many thanks to my dear friends
who have shared with me a lot during my studies and my research work as
well.

Hanoi, 4th May, 2015

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K18A2 – Faculty of English4


How to improve speaking skills for first- year- English-majored students

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1
1. Rationale ................................................................................................ 1
2. Aims of the study ................................................................................... 2
3. Scope of the study .................................................................................. 2
4. Research questions ................................................................................ 3

1.9.3. Pronunciation ............................................................................... 17
1.9.4. Vocabulary ................................................................................... 18
1.9.5. Background knowledge ................................................................ 19
1.10. Summary ......................................................................................... 20
CHAPTER II: PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED BY THE FIRST-YEARENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS IN SPEAKING SKILLS ............... 21
2.1. Data collection .................................................................................. 21
2.1.1. A survey questionnaire ................................................................. 21
2.1.2. Class observation.......................................................................... 21
2.1.3. Subject and setting........................................................................ 22
2.2. Data analysis ..................................................................................... 23
2.3. Stress ................................................................................................. 26
2.4. Intonation.......................................................................................... 26
2.5. The problems of the first-year- English-majored students in
speaking skills .......................................................................................... 27
2.5.1. The lack of vocabulary ................................................................. 27
2.5.2. The confusion of the pronouncing and using grammar ................. 28
2.5.3. The lack of self-confidence .......................................................... 29
2.5.4. The lack of background knowledge and culture............................ 29
2.5.5. The change of the environment from high schools to universities. 30

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K18A2 – Faculty of English6


How to improve speaking skills for first- year- English-majored students

2.5.6. Effects of the mother tongue in practicing English speaking skills 31
2.6. Summary ........................................................................................... 33
CHAPTER III: SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS 34

3.7. Self-consciousness of improving speaking skills ............................. 51
3.8. Summary ........................................................................................... 51
PART C: CONCLUSION .......................................................................... 52
REFERENCES ........................................................................................... 54
APPENDIX
SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE ................................................................... 58

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K18A2 – Faculty of English8


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Language is the tool of communication, while speaking is the most important
part of language communication and it is the basic path to understand others.
To speak successfully a language, we need to be able to work out what
speakers mean when they use particular words in particular ways on particular
occasions and not simply to understand the words themselves. Many students
of English in Vietnam in general and ones at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open
University in particular do badly in this field, they find it difficult to get good
marks in English speaking comprehension, especially in understanding the
implied meaning of conversation and the questions of the teachers.
Communication is likely the most important skill that people need. Effective
communication skills will definitely link to work effectiveness and life
satisfaction. Also, communication is the process of transmitting idea and
information orally in a variety of situations. In all of the people, students will
become familiar with speechmaking as an ongoing process, the ethics of
speaking, which they have everyday. Mastering types of speaking skillfully
will surely support students' works and their personal lives by making them

Because of the time limit and the length of this paper, I want to focus on
speaking skills, the common problems and some suggestions to solve those
problems on speaking skills. This is the reason why I have chosen "How to
improve speaking skills for first-year-English-majored students" at Hanoi
Open University as the subject for the graduation paper.

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4. Research questions
These objectives could be summarized into some research questions as
follows:
- What are speaking skills?
- What are the problems that the first-year students have when practicing
speaking skills?
- What have the first-year students done to improve speaking skills?
5. Methods of the study
As the study involves in finding out the problems faced by first-year students
of English and helping them develop speaking skills, the data collection
mainly focuses on:
- Questionnaire
- Classroom observation
And then the data will be synthesized and analyzed to help find out students'
problems and the methods for improving their weaknesses.
6. Design of the study
The graduation paper is divided into three parts and three chapters.

Speaking plays a very important role in daily life and in communication.
People speak to each other "to exchange ideas and to make others see what
they mean". In learning English, speaking is not only one of four important
skills but also the skill used most regularly inside and outside class in order to
learn, chat, convey and exchange ideas to others. Hence, Speaking is worth
learning and practicing in a routine. But what is SPEAKING? We will
provide various definitions about speaking in the part below.
1.1. Definitions of Speaking
The most common features of Speaking have been shown in this simple
definition: The articulating sounds conveying thoughts, opinions. All of these
are used by speakers in every communication, which creates understanding
between speakers and listeners.
According to Merrian, the author of the book "Webster online
dictionary" (2002):
"Speaking is uttering words or articulating sounds with the ordinary
voice. Speaking is the way to convey thoughts, opinions, and emotion orally
or to express oneself".
In other words, speaking is an important skill by which the speaker
and listener can exchange ideas, express their feelings. We genuinely hope to
achieve a particular end through communicating speaking. People talk and
interact to express their ideas, wishes, or desires. By communication, they
may negotiate to solve a particular problem; or establish and maintain social
relationships, friendships so on...

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K18A2 – Faculty of English


1.2.3. Speaking happens in real time
During conversations, responses are unplanned and spontaneous and
the speakers think on their feet, producing language which reflects this
(Foster, 2000, p.368).
These time constraints affect the speaker's ability to plan, to organize
the message, and to control the language being used. Speakers often start to
say something and change their mind midway; which is termed a false start.
The speaker's sentences also cannot be as long or as complex as in writing.
Similarly, speakers occasionally forget things they intended to say; or they
may even forget what they have already said, and so they repeat themselves
(Miller, 2001, p.27).
This implies that the production of speech in real time imposes
pressures, but also allows freedoms in terms of compensating for these
difficulties. The use of formulaic expressions, hesitation devices, selfcorrection, rephrasing and repetition can help speakers become more fluent
and cope with real time demands (Bygate, 1987, p.21; Foster, 2000 and
Hughes, 2002,p.76).
Actually, exposing students to these spoken discourse features
facilitates their oral production and helps them compensate for the problems
they encounter. It also helps them sound normal in their use of the foreign
language.
1.3. Speaking English as a skill
In the book, Bygate assumed that:
"Speaking is in many ways as undervalued skill. Perhaps this is
because we can almost all speak, and so take the skill for too much granted.
However speaking is a skill that deserves attention every bit as much as
literary skill, in both first and second languages" (1991, p.19).
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Specifically, speaking can be distinguished from writing in many
areas. These include:
- Discourse structure: the spoken discourse is characterized by:
reciprocal openings and closings, interactive negotiation of meaning and
conversation structures. Besides, it is characterized by the use of simple
linking devices (discourse devices) such as 'and', ' but', 'anyway', 'right' rather
than complicated ones used in written discourse (Nunan, 1999, p. 22;
Dinapoli, 2000,p.1 and Miller, 2001). )
- Typical features of the speech stream (like segmental and

suprasegmental features, pauses, hesitations, interruptions, and false starts)
(Bygate, 1998, p. 21). )
- Features related to the cultural nature of speaking. The spoken
discourse contains numerous social and contextual factors as well as
pragmatic presuppositions (Carter & McCarthy, 1997, p.13)
- Grammatical and lexical features: As for grammar, the spoken
language is characterized by:
Contractions and elliptical constructions lacking subjects or
rejoinders; ex: (sure, me too, or not now, thanks) (Widdowson, 1998).
Incomplete sentences called "utterances" (Yule, 1989, p.170).
Fronting which refers to the movement of an element from its
position and its relocation as the first element in a construction to allow a

purpose tend to be long and involve some prior organization of content and use
of linguistic devices to signal either the organization or type of information that
will be given (Basturkmen, 2002, p. 26).
On the other hand, some conversations are interactional with the
purpose of establishing or maintaining a relationship. This latter kind is
sometimes called the interpersonal use of language. It plays an important
social role in 38 oiling the wheels of social intercourse (Yule, 1989, p.169).
Examples of interactional uses of language are greetings, small talks, and
compliments. Apparently, the language used in the interactional mode is
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listener oriented. Speakers' talk in this type tends to be limited to quite short
turns (Dornyei & Thurrell, 1994, p. 43 and Richards, 1990, p. 54).
However, in spite of the distinctions between the two types, in most
circumstances, interactional language is combined with transactional
language. This helps to ease the transactional tasks to be done by keeping
good social relations with others. In other words, we can say that speakers do
one thing by doing another (Brazil, 1995, p. 29). So both purposes can be
viewed as two dimensions of spoken interaction.
Analyzing speaking purposes more precisely, (Kingen, 2000, p. 218)
combines both the transactional and interpersonal purposes of speaking into
an extensive list of twelve categories as follows:
Personal - expressing personal feelings, opinions, beliefs and ideas.
Descriptive- describing someone or something, real or imagined.
Narrative-creating and telling stories or chronologically

This list corresponds closely to the language functions explained by
Halliday (1975).
1.6. Speaking genres
The genre theory assumes that different speech events result in
different types of texts, which are distinct in terms of their overall structure
and kinds of grammatical items typically associated with them (Hughes, 2002,
p. 83). Carter and McCarthy (1997) classify speaking extracts in terms of
genres as follows:
Narrative: A series of everyday anecdotes told with active listener
participation.
Identifying: Extracts in which people talk about themselves, their
biography, where they live, their jobs, their likes and dislikes.
Language-in-action: Data recorded while people are doing things
such as cooking, packing, moving furniture…
Comment-elaboration: People giving casual opinions and
commenting on things, other people, events and so on.
Debate and argument: Data, in which people take up positions,
pursue arguments and expound on their opinions.
Decision-making and negotiating outcomes: Data illustrating
ways in which people work towards decisions/consensus or negotiate their
way through problems towards solutions.
It is recognized that no speech genre can be entirely discrete; for
example, narratives can be embedded within other main generic categories.

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1.7.1. The role of speaking inside and outside the class
As the students of English foreign language, we have opportunities to
approach English as a main subject. Students communicate or discuss about a
certain topic to get information, knowledge or simply to get good marks in
examinations by practicing in class. But the most important role of speaking
class is to give students chances to talk, practice and develop their critical
thinking, then progress their language skills. Finally, they can confidently
communicate in public and get effective speaking outside the class.
On the other hand, speaking outside class, such as practicing speaking
at home or talking to foreigners, also helps communicate inside class more
easily. These two activities have its roles to supplement to each other. Thus,
students should pay attention to combine them all the time.
1.7.2. The relationship between speaking and other skills
In learning English, speaking and other skills are inseparable and
tightly interconnected together to create successful communication. When
speaking regularly, speaker can consolidate his grammar, vocabulary,
structures more clearly, or enlarge his vocabulary by brainstorming to get
ideas.
As Raymond Zeuschner say:
"There is a direct relationship between speaking and writing. You first
listened, then thought, then spoke and then wrote". (1997,p.86).
When one regularly does writing, it will give him interesting ideas to
support his speaking. If simple sentences as well as complex ones in writing
are used regularly in speaking, this will much help speakers arrange ideas and
express their opinions. Like many people say: "Being skilled at one can help

grammar, and using the suitable words for specific situations. Some students
can get good marks in grammar tests but when speaking, they make very
simple mistakes like: "She don't go to school yesterday" instead of "She didn't
go to school yesterday" or say "Sorry, can I help you?" to help others but not
"Excuse me, can I help you?".
When speaking is grammatically accurate, speakers can show their
levels in English to others and make the listeners satisfied. Speaking with
grammar accuracy is also an important criterion for teachers to assess his or
her students' level in English. Therefore, students need to practice speaking a
lot for giving their speech with the exact grammar.

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1.9.2. Fluency
Being fluent in speaking means that speaker expresses his ideas
naturally and confidently without stopping too long and hesitating.
"The main factors of speaking which can be traced to the processing
condition of communicative involve the time factor. The words are being
spoken as they are being decided and as they are being understood" (Bygate,
1987).
Fluency is the ability to combine units of speech together with facility
without inappropriate slowness or undue hesitation. This is stated as a
phenomenon of communicative competence and distinguished from strategic
competence. The author pointed out that time factor affects much to the
communicative process of speakers. Hence, speaker should try to overcome